


Of Digital Dreams

by waterfallliam



Category: Proxy Series - Alex London
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Gen, hologod!knox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 19:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20019991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterfallliam/pseuds/waterfallliam
Summary: He moved, silent as the dead, but twice as sexy: through the server system and back into the active flow of the network.What if when he died, some part of Knox survived?





	Of Digital Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been knocking around since before Guardian (shoutout to the proxynetwork!) and while it may have taken years for this fic to finally be written, it exists now. It’s quite different from how I imagined it could be, so maybe I'll write another some day. Enjoy!

_In death, he’d become a patron saint._ – Liam, _Daydreamer._

The last impression Knox had of the living, breathing world was heat. It pressed against him from all sides, agitated in the glass tube, searching for escape but only finding him. He burned as the air burned. The itching burn of radiation, his organs slowly disintegrating and breaking down. His skin had burned first, then the inside of his throat, his stomach, his skull–he had burned everywhere, burning and burning as he felt parts of himself fracture into electric impulses, caught in white hot wires.

The pieces of him burned, burned with purpose: finding and destroying the data in people’s blood, their records, the very network that kept that lifeblood of the city pumping. They travelled and fractured again, hunting down every last machine that was linked up, fizzling out at every dead end they met. Burned out. Useless.

Every successful elimination sang out a note of victory, a cacophony of information for only him to hear. Every iteration of himself ran towards his goal like he had never ran towards anything in life. In death, he was an avenging angel, a saviour. Not righteous, not without blame or guilt. But taking responsibility, acting.

It was not a question of deserving, of doing enough to earn peace or forgiveness. The moment he decided to step into the machine he knew his death would be a thankless one, but for his two friends staring back him, the last thing he saw before disintegrating.

One iteration found its way into the private datastream of a Xelon employee’s glasses. She was trying to negotiate a bribe with the Nigerian border control to get her daughter entry. She died the moment Knox reached her blood, erasing the biohacks that kept her hair inky blue and her malaria under control. With no way to transfer himself to organic matter, no way to keep burning, he stopped. He burnt out. Gone.

The stream was a different matter. As he chewed through its code, he was sending himself onward, constantly in motion, constantly firing somewhere. He was a one-way street, ploughing onward, consuming everything in front of him. He latched onto the identifier for the port, nowhere left to run but through the connection, through the signal, across the ocean–

Knox felt himself get pulled in several different directions before he was suddenly hurtling along a gossamer thread. He was weightless, yet caged. He had form; he was movement, a vibration. Forward and forward he sped. Nothing to eat, nothing to burn, nothing left to latch onto.

Still he fled, still he was. He oscillated and shifted along the only direction until there was no space left.

It was like hitting a wall. He was wrenched into form, into shape. He felt like he was being stretched, pulled, compressed until–

He was trapped. Trapped in a forward motion, trapped as a group of oscillations. He was stranded at sea, but he was also the sea. There was no port, no harbour. No ship, no sail. He was cold; he had no purpose. There was no code to latch onto, to corrupt, to destroy. But he was still here. Knox was still alive.

The first coherent thought was how weird it was to not have a body.

The next was that the world would surely mourn the loss of his beauty. (If there was even a world left.)

After that, there was no escaping the sensation that he was being chased, that he was prey. If there was one thing Knox was good at, it was computers. Now was not the time to worry about where his body had gone, or that his last memory was of kissing Syd. He needed to find somewhere safe.

At its most base level, every computer system followed a basic set of rules. They were consistent, comprehensive and logical. They weren’t always built or programmed the same way, but Knox’s intuition and skill hadn’t failed him yet. He fled through ports and transistors, keeping to central exchanges of information, hoping to lose the security software. The piece of information he decided to hitch a ride with was a calculated risk.

He shifted the strings of code he was made of amongst the long-winded garble of a legal document. He would just have to make sure to hop off before he hit the company’s firewall and burst into unattached 1 and 0s. He almost regretted it when the code routed and rerouted itself multiple times, but anonymity was the cost of security. The document should have shaken him off by now, but with luck that meant he read as a non-hostile entity: a piece of code designed to help navigate the digital landscape as opposed to a virus.

He left the safety net provided by the document while in a protected sub server, probably a private one offered to businesses to store information or mod it or—

That could come later. He was too tired for recon, shedding metadata like glitter at Arcadia. He wound himself tighter and tighter, pulling on his code as much as he could. It became harder to think, but if he was small he would be hidden.

The concept of time was hard to place. The renewal of his bits of code were regular, though regular _what_ Knox did not know. He shrank into a crack in the server, one of the numerous dead ends that had once been a part of something but weren’t anymore, forgotten by the last system overhaul. They were relics of an old world, like Knox was.

He let his lines of code duplicate themselves. There was no diagnostic to run; he himself was not a system, so he checked his renewal manually. He felt every corrupted digit, every decimal point that shifted. He drifted in and out of thought as he tweaked his code, adjusting for all sorts of details that had corroded as the virus had matured in Syd’s body. His version was functional, more than enough to bring down the system—but it was also a copy, an imperfect one at that.

He slogged away until it was done, removed from time or perception. He knew no sleep, no rest. Knox had become something different than corporeal, something more than just a digital copy of his brainwaves. Despite no longer feeling the need to burn, the virus was still a part of him, giving him the ability to light his candle at both ends. He was brighter than any star above the distant desert sky.

Hacking eradicated the worst of the malfunctions, he felt like he was being reborn, full of energy and a new lease of life. There was nothing to stop him once he started upgrading himself. He worked until the job was done. He was now Knox 2.0., prettier than ever.

But the one thing he was not anymore, was safe. He peeked out the edge of the dead space he had hidden himself away in. The security system had not forgotten about him. He was part of the official wanted list, one of the many viruses or detrimental pieces of code their antivirus software searched for. He was forever a rebel now, forever hunted. Knox thought it just made him all the more dashing, never mind that he was now technically a program and did not have a body as such.

There was something else amongst the tiny soldiers searching for him. Fragments of news for him to catch and intercept. He scanned them as they passed, absorbing them straight into his consciousness, copied into the matrices of his memory. It took him nanoseconds to adjust, then he knew, then he felt it–

They had been successful.

Yovel, the day all debts would be forgiven, the deletion of all biodata—it had happened, they had done it!

There was more.

They had left the Mountain City… images from drones sent across the sea showed hollowed out buildings, smoke forming a new skyline of towers, empty streets and scavengers. Just how long had it been?

That was all there was. A few fragments that had lost their way in the larger data streams and drifted ashore here. If he wanted to know more, he had to be more central, more wired in. And to do that, he had to figure out how to be invisible.

No point in dying twice.

With all the data streaming by, it was easy to pick out tiny fragments. Just small ones, here and there: nothing anyone would miss too badly. Every one of them formed a tiny scale in the armour he was building.

Carefully, patiently, he worked. His mind wanted to run, jump, shout—not wait, no, never wait, never be still. But even if he fled, he could no longer escape himself.

No, Knox decided, he had to stick by his decision to face up to reality. Run _towards_ something. Syd, Marie, the newly born city community: that was what mattered. He could see it now.

Placing the last scale in his armour felt like he had finally become who he was meant to be. All those long hours staring out his window, staring at nothing, tweaked to shit suddenly felt like the eternity before the big bang. Rebirth. And was that not what life was all about?

He moved, silent as the dead, but twice as sexy: through the server system and back into the active flow of the network. It was overwhelming, like stepping back into Arcadia after a quick breather in the back alley. There was so much information, so many programs, an ocean of noise and numbers.

Where to start?

He moved slowly at first, taking ever longer steps with the currents of the datastreams. News. Espionage intel. The Mountain City. That was what he needed to find.

They had relocated. Moved.

Where the rebels had been, that was where they were now. The Reconciliation.

A drone picture of a rally, the tiny figures just smears of pixels from so far away.

But that was months ago. He looked at the smears, read the metadata. Could one of them be Syd? Marie?

He needed to know they were alive. They had to be.

He braved the current. Let it carry him. Programs tugged at him, gnawed at his armour, trying to unmoor him, expose him. But he was faster. He swam between them, a furious freestyle, picking up more information to plug the gaps as he raced. Faster, faster.

Yovel, _Syd._ He was their liberator, the face of the revolution. Beside him, always beside him, a man—or was it a boy?—with red hair. He recognised no one else. They wore robes, there was pointing, a ramshackle army with white masks, farming, an execution, farming, another rally—

Suddenly the images changed. There were no more gatherings, no more rallies, no more fields speckled with machinery. He backtracked. Found the triple encryption locked files codenamed _Xelon Contagion._

Death stared him in the face.

The old Knox would have laughed, rejoiced, at having cheated fate. Now he just felt sick. The virus was supposed to help people, to save them…

Had been supposed to.

But it had also brought them death.

( _He_ had brought them death, however unintentional.)

No fear nor caution held him back as he took to the rapids, plunging into the data and racing faster than any organic eye could ever follow. He trimmed and sewed instructions, sending packets of information, deliveries, memos, moneys–he weaved a web of loose threads around himself, armed to the teeth with newfound impetus.

He was going to help them. He was going to help them all.

He directed ships with medical supplies, equipment to build temporary hospitals and machines to farm. Nothing was too thoughtful to not include. One ship would not be missed from their fleet. One ship directed by him would need no human captain.

Something so large could not go unnoticed for long. So he had hid. He had had to. Always moving, always watching, always just out of sight.

Right up until the very last moment.

He jumped, sending a tremendous surge of energy behind him, severing his last connection to Nigeria’s vast digital network.

He was alive. He had a ship and a purpose. He was doing pretty well for a dead guy.

The ship flew across an entire ocean. It flew across the desert. It flew across the vine covered buildings, until finally, finally, the ship landed safe and sound. He had done it. Knox released the controls and felt like he could breathe again.

It took a few days, but the survivors came. He watched their blurry pixels through the cameras on the hull of the ship. Marie and a bulky, red haired man led a group out of the jungle city, armed and cautious. Her new, short hair suited her. If it were not for his state-of-the-art facial recognition software, he would have mistaken her for someone else at first. Not only had her face hardened, but the way she moved was more precise, more pragmatic.

It was nothing like how the man next to her moved. Knox only had to glimpse him to know he could kill. There was no record of him in his vast, stolen databases. How curious.

As they neared the ship, he opened the cargo bay door for them, feeling the loud whirring of every internal cog as if it was the push of pull of his own muscles. In a way it was, he supposed. He was the ship now.

“That’s… unusual,” the red-head said, eyes narrowing. Something flashed at his hip, and it took Knox a few seconds to realise it was not a weapon he was carrying, but his hand. It was made of metal.

“Yes,” Marie agreed. Then, stepping forward, she called, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

If Knox still had a body, he would take a deep breath. Strike a pose. This was the moment.

“I come in peace,” he said, turning on every speaker in the ship.

The red-head frowned. The rest of the group hung back. Marie took a step closer, “Okay. We do, too. We’re from the city, we saw you land.”

She stepped up onto the metal ramp of the door, ignoring the hand the other man held out in warning.

“I’ve come to help,” Knox said.

“That voice… I know…” Marie said, almost too quiet for the microphones to pick up. Knox was suddenly glad for his foresight in not erasing any information about his physical body from his coding, even if what had really motivated him had been vanity.

“What is it?” The man asked, hunching his head as if he was worried of being hunted. He looked suddenly familiar. Was he the figure who had stood by Syd at those rallies? He straightened up a moment later, exuding the presence of a predator again.

Except Marie, the others all went on alert. One shrank back, another swallowed, a third clenched her fists. Knox rarely missed anything these days, he realised. With all that processing power, he ran hotter than ever. He could watch with a multitude of eyes, listen with near invisible ears… he could, but really, he just wanted a body.

He would settle for something sexier than a long haul cargo ship. Surely, there was still enough tech in this forsaken place for that?

“Who is it?” The man asked, blunt as a hammer.

Marie stepped inside the ship, running her hand along the inside of the hull reverently. “Knox, is it really you?”

“Hello Marie,” he wished he could wink, “Guess I’m too pretty to stay dead!”

The look of shock on Marie’s face made him long for a body so he could laugh again. If only there was a holo-projector on board.

“Knox… Brindle?” The man asked, looking pained.

“In the flesh! Well, not anymore, but instead of my beautiful presence I’ve brought you something almost as good.”

Swallowing her initial shock, Marie examined the crates, skimming the manifest and popping open a few crates with the others’ help.

She found the medical supplies. Then the agricultural manuals and machines. “Liam, look!”

It took a couple of days to move everything. Most of his conversation was reduced to coordinating moving supplies, but as alone as Knox had been these past months, he was glad of human company. It was funny, how suddenly not being alone had made him realise just how alone he had been.

“Somehow a cargo ship just isn’t quite your style.” Marie said, wandering over to perch on one of the last few containers. As much as they had been through, they still did not exactly have that much in common except their past titles of patrons.

“They didn’t have any flashy sports cars to steal,” Knox lamented. “What about you? The hair?”

She ran a hand through it, her nails short but still grimy. “I wanted a change.”

“I bet the purple was starting to look bad, too, right?”

Marie halfheartedly kicked the nearest wall she could reach. “Not everyone cares as much about looks as you, Knox.”

“And the Causeheads, sorry, the Reconciliation,” he said both names with scorn, “they let you live?”

“They… let a lot of patrons live. But because I helped with the revolution, I was allowed to take on a more active role.”

“As what?”

She twirled her EMD stick listlessly with one hand. “A Purifier. An enforcer, like the Guardians used to be.” She had been a part of the faceless army, wearing her own white mask.

“And now?”

“Now I’m like everyone else. No patrons, no purifiers. Just people.”

It sounded like something out of a storybook. But Knox supposed his previous life was the story now.

“And what about the Guardians?”

“None of us know _what_ they are. They succumbed to it first and were the first to recover.”

It was the first time either of them had so much as referred to the sickness, despite the very obvious reason Knox had brought mostly medical supplies.

But there was one thing Knox cared about more than the sickness. “Where is Syd? Doesn’t he have time between rallies to visit an old friend?”

“Syd, he,” Marie was silent for a few beats, an eternity of processes firing nowhere along the wires of the ship. “He’s sick Knox. He didn’t die like the others, but… we still can’t identify a pattern in who’s waking up and who isn’t.”

Syd. Syd was sick and might die. “Oh.”

Knox had died for him, only for him to lay dying anyway.

How ironic. He wanted to tear the world apart at its seams. Except, that had not worked last time, had it?

“And there’s nothing you can do?”

Knox felt helpless. The _Xelon Contagion_ files had been empty. Even with his newfound power, his newfound abilities… it was not enough to save Syd.

“Liam’s looking after him. It’s all there is to do,” she sighed, then added, “They’re a couple now.”

“So Syd got a boyfriend,” Knox said, if only so he could have something to say.

“What, you jealous?” Marie teased, and suddenly it was as if they were laying in the desert again, the stars above twinkling with infinite and unknowable wisdom.

“No! Of course not.”

Marie hummed thoughtfully, sporting the first real smile he had seen on her face since she had opened the crates.

“What’s his deal, anyway? Liam.”

“He was with the Reboo—Reconciliation since he was a child, but more than that, no one really knows.”

“He being gentle with Syd? After everything, he needs someone gentle. Liam looks like a brute.”

“I—” Marie faltered, her EMD stick coming to rest in her lap. “He’s gentle, with Syd.”

“And the rest of the time?”

“He’d make a pampered city boy like you wet yourself without even lifting a finger.”

“That scary, huh?” But Knox believed her.

Marie lay back on the crate, her eyes roaming the ceiling, searching for his cameras. “He’s absolutely besotted with Syd. Got himself sliced open for him real good—”

Knox died for him, he thought.

“And the things _he_ did.” Marie rubbed her shoulder. Knox did not need her to spell it out for him. Liam had killed for Syd. 

He wondered if it was the same, what he and that Swampcat had done for Syd and what Liam had.

He wondered if the way he felt about Syd could have become the way Liam felt about him.

“How _did_ you do it, anyway?” Marie asked, interrupting his musings.

“Do what?”

“Survive.”

Luck. Skill. Ingenuity. More luck. “I’m too pretty to kill. I’ll live forever.” The words sounded hollow.

Marie rolled her eyes. “There’s a tech ban now. Except necessities, like farming equipment or medical machines. When the council meets tomorrow, I’m going to ask for permission to transfer you to a body.”

“A sexy sports car?” He joked.

“A tin can on wheels.”

“See if you can find a holo-projector, maybe? The world can always use more handsome.”

Marie laughed. “Okay.”

Knox hoped this meant they could be friends in this new world. If it was a new start for everyone, why not them, too?

Liam visited him the day after the last of the crates had been hauled away.

“I know what you did for Syd,” Liam said without preamble. “I can’t say I’m glad I didn’t kill you when I had the chance, but…”

He had almost killed Knox? When?

“…you’re important to Syd. I told the council they should give you a body.”

“As it’s technically life support, it qualifies as medical equipment.” Knox said. “And thanks.”

Liam nodded, but did not move to sit. 

“If Syd doesn’t want to see you after everything, or if he needs time—”

“I’ll wait,” Knox interjected. “I know, I’ve already caused him more than enough pain.”

Liam looked surprised.

“Syd comes first,” Knox added.

“We can agree on that.”

A truce was better than nothing.

He got his body, a holo-projector on wheels, just as Marie had promised. He still had all the information he had downloaded, which made him qualified to help the others learn how to operate the machinery he had brought. After that, he did not know if he had a place in this new world. If he could make himself one.

It all came down to how to power him, in the end. There was only so much that could be scavenged, only so long the solar panels would work. Maybe one day he would return to the ocean of data on the Nigerian networks. Maybe one day he would find somewhere he felt he belonged. But for now, there were people he could help.

Syd woke up.

Eventually, he saw Knox.

When he smiled, his eyes were brighter and more beautiful than any moon Knox had ever seen.


End file.
